1Upload the PDF documents you want to read — nothing is installed and no reader application is needed.
2Page through the document, zoom, and search inside it wherever the file carries a real text layer.
3Select and copy any text you need straight out of the rendered page.
4Close the tab when you are finished; the uploaded PDF file is deleted from the workers shortly afterwards.
PDF Reader FAQ
How does PDF Reader display the file?
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Concretely, the document is rendered page by page in the browser with its text layer intact, so you can search and select without downloading anything or installing a reader. Nothing is installed and nothing is downloaded to open it.
Can I search inside the document?
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Yes, wherever the file has a real text layer. A scanned document that has never been through text recognition is a picture of words as far as any reader is concerned, and will not be searchable until it is OCR'd.
Does the format affect what the reader can show?
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It does. PDF fixes the page: fonts, vectors, raster images and text coordinates are frozen so every reader sees identical layout. Layout fidelity comes directly from how the format stores the page.
Anything specific to PDF here?
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Yes — a PDF is an object graph, not a page image, so text stays selectable and vectors stay sharp no matter what happens to the raster content inside it. It explains what is preserved on screen.
Does it look the same as it would in a desktop reader?
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Yes for the page content — fonts, vectors and images are rendered from the same objects a desktop reader would use. Interactive extras such as embedded multimedia and JavaScript actions are deliberately not executed.
Do I have to upload the file to read it?
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It goes to our workers to be rendered, and is deleted shortly after your session finishes. Nothing about the document is retained and nothing is indexed.
What can I upload to PDF Reader?
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Any standard PDF, including ones produced by a scanner, by a word processor or by a print driver. Files with an owner password that only restricts editing are handled; files that need a user password to open are not, and we do not attempt to break encryption.
Is there a file size limit on PDF Reader?
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Yes: free accounts process documents up to 25 MB each, which covers most reports and contracts but not a long scanned document at 600 DPI; Ghostscript and qpdf do the work. Scanned PDFs are the usual thing that exceeds it, and compressing the document first is normally enough to bring it back under.
Will PDF Reader lower the quality of my PDF documents?
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Text and vector artwork are objects rather than pixels, so they stay perfectly sharp at any zoom no matter what happens. Only the embedded raster images can degrade, and only if the operation you chose resamples them.
Can I run PDF Reader on several PDF documents at once?
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Yes — upload the set and they process in parallel under one set of settings, which is the point of doing a document workflow here rather than clicking through a desktop reader.
Do bookmarks, links and form fields survive?
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Outlines, internal links and annotations are preserved wherever the operation allows it. Digital signatures are the exception: any change to the file necessarily invalidates a signature, because that is precisely what a signature is for.
Does PDF Reader cost anything?
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No. PDF Reader is free without an account, and nothing is stamped onto the pages. Uploaded documents are deleted from the workers shortly after the job completes.
